Most confounding wonder of the universe discovered

The world is finally about to see a black hole — not an artist’s impression or a computer-generated likeness, but the real thing.

At six press conferences across the globe scheduled for 1300 GMT on Wednesday, scientists will unveil the first results from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), conceived precisely for that purpose.

It has been a long wait.

Of all the forces in the Universe that we cannot see — including dark energy and dark matter — none has frustrated human curiosity as thoroughly as the invisible, star-devouring monsters known as black holes.

Yet, the phenomena are so powerful that nothing nearby — not even light — can escape their gravitational pull.

“Over the years, we accumulated indirect observational evidence,” said Paul McNamara, an astrophysicist at the European Space Agency and project scientist for the LISA mission that will track massive black hole mergers from space.

In September 2015, for example, the LIGO gravitational wave detectors in the United States measured two black holes smashing together.

“X-rays, radio-waves, light -– they all point to very compact objects, and the gravitational waves confirmed that they really are black holes, even if we have never actually seen one,” McNamara told AFP.

Two candidates are vying to be in the first-ever image.

AFP

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